Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Big thumbs up for Home Routes

...house concerts. We received an invitation last fall and finally attended our first one last week. I won't say where, but I will say I was a little nervous about going to a house I've never been to before. I worried for nothing, though, as the hosts were great and so was the crowd. I have nothing but good things to say.

Talk about a cultural experience. There was a good number of artists from the various disciplines in the audience and I'm sure, like me, they were absorbing more than the music itself. The costumes. The lighting. The pacing. The banter. The self-promotion. This duo was very good. I learned a lot.

As well, I had a productive exchange with another writer prior to the show and during the intermission, an exchange that might not have happened otherwise. We'll see what comes of it. As we were talking, I noticed a local musician talking with one of the duo. Everywhere I looked, people were talking. Geologists, lawyers, nurses, analytical techs, you name it, many of whom are also practising musicians, visual artists, performers and writers. It was a great mix. I left feeling energized. I'm still feeling it.

While energized, I'm also quite worried about the future of such programs, especially after reading about how the new Canada Periodical Fund could put Canada’s small-run literary magazines in jeopardy. More here. And here. Like house concerts, literary magazines have small audiences. But the benefit to society of such cultural endeavors, of the exchanges between artists and audience in a kitchen at a house concert or between a reader and a literary magazine in bed, is not limited to those rooms. It cannot be measured with formulas.

Glad you enjoyed the show with Sheesham and Lotus. Aren't those guys fantastic?! I'm excited about their concert here in Winnipeg on Friday. I managed to catch their show at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this past summer and they gave me my old-time fix for the weekend! And more! It's amazing what those two can do with a welding torch and some old brass instruments...If anyone is interested in the other musicians we have on Home Routes, you can check out our website at www.homeroutes.ca and click on "schedule".Because all of these concerts are held in private homes, we don't give out the contact info for each presenter so if anyone is interested in attending, please give me a call at 1-866-925-6889 ext 207 or email tim@homeroutes.ca and I'll be glad to make it happen. Tim OsmondOperations Manager/Banjo PickerHome Routes

MY BOOKS

"Whether describing thunder or the flight patterns of ptarmigan, Schmidt does so poetically with a great sense of timing and rhythm. She has the sort of narrative voice that makes sitting in the grass keeping an ear out for birds philosophical and lively – something worth listening to." - Devin Pacholik, Global News Regina.Read more.

"Evoking the work of Don McKay, Trevor Herriot and Gerald Hill, Schmidt walks in some pretty big footsteps, and more than measures up. These essays colonize the middle ground between deep connection with place and concern for its ecological future, constantly questioning our troubled relationship with prairie process." - Judges' citation, Saskatchewan Book Award for Nonfiction nomination. Jurors: Barry Ferguson, Wayne Grady, Barry Grills.

"You can just feel the stones rattling off your undercarriage on this Grid." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"Like the Prairies, this is not a collection that gives itself away: the true beauty of this book lies in subtleties that may not be obvious at first glance." - Emily McGiffin, The Malahat Review. Read more.

"In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective. It is as though the familiar ground is an eye glancing back and the reflection only a nodal-point, open to opportunity and play." - Justin Dittrick, SPG Book Reviews.Read more.

"There is grit in these poems, so much that it seems unfair to think of them as nature poems; like the best nature writing, they undo our expectations of nature rather than uphold them." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Poetry Magazine. Read more.

"In her fourth collection Grid, Schmidt’s wry humour transcends what we have watched heap up in Canada for more than a century—nature poems—balancing in canola fields between the beautiful lure of nature and our curious urge to separate ourselves from disappearing allotments of our own solace. We have wandered “off the grid” but fortunately Schmidt is an entertaining and insightful guide who can still find Li Po in a Dark-eyed Junco, if she has to." - Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket 2. Read more.

"Throughout More Than Three Feet of Ice, Schmidt reconfigures the commonplace elements of the North, what she knows, and what she doesn't know to achieve startling nuances. In her hands the seemingly insignificant is imbued with meaning and becomes an extraordinary book." - Lynda Grace Philippsen, Books in Canada.